What are Internet Trolls?

If you've spent any notable time on the internet, you've probably run into this term if not the actual thing- "trolls." No, we're not talking about the dolls from the 80's, the thing from nursery rhymes, or even the things that will try to eat Bilbo Baggins in the upcoming movie The Hobbit. Internet trolls have been around since the internet began, and the likelihood of them going away is somewhere between zero and not-a-chance. Here's how you can identify a troll and how to respond to them:

Wikipedia defines internet trolls as "someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion." In short, trolls are people who are intentionally annoying at best and downright discriminatory at worst.

Why do they do it? For fun. Yes, these people are like the two-year old who plays the "I'm not touching you!" game with their older sister just to annoy her. Some will argue that people who post sexist, racist, or other "-ist"type comments aren't trolls because they're assumably posting from legitimate feelings and not just for fun, it is impossible to know the true reason someone will troll (yes, it's a verb as well as a noun) and therefore people who make these comments are generally put in the same group as all the other trolls.

What is one to do when encountered with an internet troll? Well, you have options. Some people choose to engage the person in conversation. I generally recommend against this as it just leads to frustration and nothing else to show for your efforts. Others will just ignore the person and continue the conversation with other people. This works well though the troll will sometimes get another member of the conversation trapped in conversation. The recommended method is to either block or report the person. Many places on the internet have "anti-trolling" measures in place that allow a person to either report a troll (and thereby have them removed from the site permanently) or block them (they maintain their membership, but you no longer see any of their comments).

Practical Tip of the Day:
When using a site like Facebook, the easiest way to avoid trolls is to simply increase your privacy settings so only your friends and family can interact with you. You can access your privacy settings on Facebook by clicking the downwards pointing triangle in the top-right corner of the webpage and then selecting "Privacy Settings." Once there, you'll have many options to help you get your account as buttoned up as you'd like.


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